


Will It Feel Like Home

by wildaloofrebel



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: M/M, and they love each other, in which I use commas however I want, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29344929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildaloofrebel/pseuds/wildaloofrebel
Summary: While David deals with some feelings about being away from his family for the first time in a long time, Patrick does his best to be there for him.I hope this is better than that summary made it seem.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 19
Kudos: 110
Collections: Schitt's Creek Season 7





	Will It Feel Like Home

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCSeason7](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCSeason7) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> 7x05 - The Sniffles
> 
> Turns out David misses his family more than he expected. Patrick walks in on David having a very quiet and respectable cry about it. Comfort ensues.

The sun through the blinds in their new kitchen is still something he’s getting used to, the morning light warming the old bones of the house and, more slowly, of Patrick, as it bathes Schitt’s Creek in the glow of a new morning. The slip of the cool tiles under his feet is new too, so he slides across it in his socks, clattering into the counter with an _oof_ that’s only muted by his instinct to not wake David any earlier than eight in the morning. The sight of David’s coffee sitting next to his tea isn’t so new anymore, but it still has him smiling every morning, as does David’s mug next to his up in the cupboard, and David’s sneakers next to his running shoes by the side door, which leads to the driveway where the Roses' old banger is parked next to Patrick’s shiny new motor, and, well, he could probably find a hundred new things around their house that he could add to this list; it’s all new and sets him grinning every time there’s another reminder that their lives are becoming irreversibly entwined, and he’d probably wake up at 6 a.m. to see it even if he wasn’t due at the store in an hour.

He’s still smiling as steam floats from the kettle and two warm arms wind around his neck.

“Oh,” he says, startling a little. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” David croaks, still sleep-addled and tucking his warm face against the side of Patrick's neck.

“What’s this?”

“Bed’s just too big without you,” he sighs theatrically.

“You poor thing.”

“I know,” he tuts, pressing his grin to the spot behind Patrick’s ear that he likes.

“Why are you up so early?” Patrick asks, turning so he can get his chilly hands under David’s sleepshirt.

“I thought you might want some company in the store today,” he says, then wiggles his shoulders as if what he just said was what he usually says at a little past six on a Wednesday. “What?”

“Nothing, I just,” he raises his hand and presses the back of it to David’s forehead, “you feeling okay?”

“You’re so funny. I thought maybe my darling husband would enjoy the gift of my presence, because most people do,” he huffs, “but I guess not.”

“I just meant it’s not like you to want to work so early,” he says, widening his eyes innocently, “or at all.”

“Okay, I think it’s actually too early for this kind of persecution.”

“Probably should’ve stayed in bed then.”

“I’ll go back if you go with me,” David smirks, his eyes twinkling, and Patrick suddenly feels like he lost the upper hand.

“No time,” he says, pulling his hands from their cotton cave and bringing his open palm down onto his husband’s ass, “some of us have to work.”

“I just said I’m going with you!” David says, whining a little before following right at Patrick’s heels towards the stairs.

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

As it turns out, David wasn’t lying; he marched up the stairs after Patrick, joined him in the shower, and, after donning a very stylish yet seasonally inappropriate sweater and jeans combo, perched up on the bathroom countertop and pressed his moisturiser into his skin, watching quietly as Patrick cleaned his teeth.

“You really don’t need to come in, David,” he says around a mouthful of toothpaste.

“No, I know; I want to,” David replies, gently rubbing some kind of potion into his hands.

“I’m just saying, we’ve been in every day for two weeks; you deserve a day off.”

“Well, now it seems like you just don’t want me to come in,” he says, quite pointedly, shoving himself off the counter and making to move away.

“No, I just – ugh, hang on,” Patrick pauses to spit his toothpaste into the sink, pulling an _ew_ from David, before straightening up again and turning to look at him, “I just don’t want you to work too hard.”

“Literally no one has ever accused me of that before,” he says, smoothing his hands over Patrick’s shoulders.

“Shocking.”

“If you want to talk about shocking,” he sulks, using a finger to tilt Patrick’s head back gently, “you haven’t been using the moisturiser I got you.”

“I don’t have time in the morning; I have a husband who likes to make me late.”

“You used to like the ways I make you late.”

“Yeah, but now we’re married so your wiles don’t work on me anymore.”

“Oh, so you admit, I have wiles.”

“Time for work, David,” he says in way of an answer, slipping out from under David’s arms and leaving the bathroom, his husband still hot on his heels.

“But I want you to tell me how hot I am.”

The store is surprisingly busy for a Wednesday. A blessedly short visit from Ronnie and a steady stream of customers sweeping in and leaving David’s carefully constructed displays in near ruin keep them busy for most of the morning, and Patrick feels worn out and ever thankful that his partner is so good at his job that his own lagging is more than made up for. Despite the bustle of people and the ransacking of the shelves, Patrick finds that David is never far from his side, they share smiles and hushed words when they happen to find themselves out of earshot of whoever they happen to be talking about. Even when Patrick’s helping a customer, David seems to search him out, his palm warm on his back, or his fingers rubbing at his shoulders, or even murmuring a comment in his ear that makes him blush like a schoolboy right in front of their eighty-year-old regular Josie.

“Don’t you worry,” she says, when Patrick apologises for his husband's indiscretion, “I remember being a newlywed,” she winks, pulling a huff of laughter from David and a near ruby blush from Patrick.

“Behave yourself,” he hisses as the door shuts behind her.

“Make me,” David says.

Patrick wants to, he does, but before he can even begin to form any kind of argument, David’s hands are at his jaw and his mouth is on his, sudden and insistent, and any case he had is barely more than a sigh quickly swallowed by his husband’s eager lips. He finds himself swept up in it almost instantly, and all thoughts of the store or being in public are banished to the far corners of his brain, the rest of his mind so full of David there’s not room for much else.

They don’t do this anymore is the thing, at least not in the store; they have a house with doors that lock – something that’s still novel after almost two years of Ray – and the luxury of total privacy, but it’s nice, and it reminds Patrick of what seems like a long time ago now, back when things were new and every time David so much as brushed past him in the store he felt like he might combust or explode or something else just as dramatic.

So, he’s pretty pissed when the bell chimes and they jump apart like teenagers caught making out by their parents.

“Don’t stop on my account boys; God knows after Roland and I got married we were caught in much more compromising positions in much more public places.”

“Is there a way to go retroactively deaf?”

“What?”

“Jocelyn!” David says, his plastered on smile much more professional than Patrick’s snort, “how can we help you out as quickly as possible?”

“Just thought I’d pop in for some more foot cream before meeting my boys at the café.”

“In the back there,” Patrick says, and waits for her to busy herself at the other end of the store before he whispers to David, “I don’t know how two people go through so much foot cream.”

“No, I know; and at this point, I’m too scared to ask them,” David murmurs back, chin on Patrick’s shoulder, “because they might tell me.”

They manage to get through Jocelyn’s visit with only minimal years taken off of their lives, and the little time they have left before lunch passes quickly with David no further away than his shadow. And it’s not annoying, it’s not, but October seldom brings winter to Schitt’s Creek and the air conditioner-less store is just on the wrong side of too warm and Patrick would just like a minute to himself.

He would never tell David that, obviously; it would upset him needlessly and, if Patrick’s being honest, he doesn’t really ever want his husband to be out of arms reach.

“Is it hot in here?” Patrick asks barely ten minutes after Jocelyn left, the back of his neck a little clammy.

“No, it’s just me,” David quips next to him, not looking up from his phone.

“You know, seeing as I’m your husband, you’re supposed to say it’s just me.”

“Hmm, I think my way’s more believable.”

“Ha,” he says, drumming his fingers on the counter before pushing away and rounding towards the door. “I’m gonna get some iced tea, you want anything?”

“Give me a minute to close, I’ll come with you,” David says, looking up from his phone.

“By the time we close up, I could be there and back. Besides,” he stops, smiling, “I don’t want to have another team meeting about acceptable work hours, do I?”

“Oh,” David breathes, mouth screwing to the side.

“I’m joking, David,” he says, pausing in the doorway, “back in ten.”

Patrick’s under no illusion that the café is some paradise of fine dining and tasteful décor. In fact, if it weren’t for Twyla being sunshine personified and the café being the only place within a few miles that isn’t a Chinese-Brazilian fusion ran by the whitest Saskatchewanian you could find, he would probably do what he could to avoid the ever-present threat of salmonella and, well, Roland.

But the warm weather brings with it a different story. Until the heat breaks, the café is a haven of A.C and almost drinkable iced tea.

“Hey, Twy,” Patrick says as he approaches the counter.

“Hey, Patrick,” she chirps, placing a to-go cup in front of him, “flavour of the day is mint and broccoli.”

“Oh, God.”

“You wanted an iced tea, right?”

“Uh, yes, please, and a muffin for David.”

“Good, I thought maybe you were just using us for our air conditioning, like some people.”

“Hey, Pat.”

“Speaking of,” Twyla says, her smile never faltering.

“How you doing, Roland?” he says, turning on his heels to face him, “and Little Rollie. Hi, buddy.”

“Hi, Pat,” the toddler squeaks from his carrier, his head tucked under his dad’s chin.

“He just gets cuter every day, Roland,” Twyla says behind him.

“Yeah, duh, look at who his father is,” Roland snorts before loudly slurping what looks like tap water.

“Weird, I was starting to think he was adopted,” Patrick snarks, pleased when he hears a loud ‘ha’ from somewhere behind the two Schitts.

“Okay,” Ronnie says, stirring her coffee and sharing her laughter with Jocelyn, “I can admit, that was funny.”

“Yeah, well, I was starting to think that I should get one of these for you,” Roland scoffs, pulling on the strap of his baby carrier.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“To make it easier for you and Dave,” he says, “cus, whenever I see you guys, he’s clinging to you like a little toddler.”

Patrick almost has the perfect comeback, almost, to silence Roland and Ronnie and a clueless but enthusiastic Roland Jr., but it’s that moment that he looks up to find his husband’s hurt eyes across the room.

“David,” he tries, but he’s through the door before he can say anything else.

Patrick likes to think that after over three years together he’s come to know David well.

He knows that when David is upset by something, space and time are what he needs most, at least at first. Since the barbecue incident right at the beginning of their relationship, he’s known that David can get overwhelmed when he’s hurt and needs to work through that hurt on his own before sharing that with anyone, even his husband. Which is fine; Patrick is happy to hover until David is ready to fight or make up or both.

He also knows that his husband can be very proud, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; he admires David’s surety in his opinions, but a string of bad relationships and a mess of people who wanted him for all the wrong reasons has left him with some feelings about himself that Patrick wishes he could ease. And these feelings are exactly why Patrick can’t let him sit alone for too long, because they without fail end in a spiral that leaves David hurting and exhausted.

Which is why Patrick walks to the motel and back before heading to the store, his café order in a stained brown bag swinging in his hand, kicking stones and himself that he both upset David, no matter how unintentionally, and that Ronnie managed to bear witness to yet more of his less than glowing moments.

When he tries the store door, it’s locked and the sign is flipped to closed, which isn’t all that surprising, and when it swings open it feels like the first hurdle between him and his husband has been jumped. After locking the door behind him and leaving his bag on the counter, he quietly approaches the back room, pausing briefly to take a breath before pulling the curtain aside.

It’s heart-breaking, like actually painful, when the light illuminates the back room, shrouding his husband, who has become some much assured in the years Patrick has known him, who now takes up as much space as he wants with no feeling of guilt, in soft golden light, and shows him hunched on a stool, his arms hugging himself, crying silently.

“Oh, David,” he says, closing the space between them and wrapping David up in his arms, his chest to David’s back, his chin resting on his shoulder, “I’m so sorry; Roland’s an idiot, I swear I was going to tell him to shut up when you came in.”

He holds David silently for several long minutes, just gently tracing his fingers in slow circles over his stomach, letting the tension to begin to ebb from his body in steady waves until he’s not crying anymore, just sniffling.

“I’m sorry,” David whispers when he finds his voice, a little hoarse but otherwise almost normal.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because Roland was right,” he says, face twisting into a frown, “which is not something I’m ever going to say again.”

“He wasn’t right.”

“Yes, he was; I’ve been clingy and needy, and that altogether is not a great look and is probably kind of annoying seeing as you can’t even get tea or shower without me.”

“I don’t mind you showering with me,” Patrick says, waiting for David to smile before allowing his own to break.

“Yes, well,” he starts, rolling his eyes, “I’m just saying, you didn’t sign up for, like, a needy puppy of a husband. And I know I’ve been kind of messy recently, and I’m just a lot to deal with in general. So, I’m sorry.”

“First of all, I’m never going to complain about you being needy; I like being needed, and I like being close to you.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t marry you because I think we should take some space,” he says, squeezing his arms tighter around David.

“Secondly?”

“Secondly, you are a lot,” he says, “and I like it.”

“Right.”

“I do, David; I like most things about you.”

“Only most?”

“I don’t that you diss my choice of movies.”

“There are two too many National Treasure movies, that’s all.”

“And I don’t like that you steal all the blankets in your sleep.”

“As remarkable and talented as I am, I can’t actually control what I do while unconscious, so.”

“I don’t like that you still feel that you have to cry alone,” he murmurs, his words seeming to catch David off guard as he peers at him with big, sad eyes, “because I want you to believe that you can always talk to me, about anything,” he briefly lets go of David as he talks, and steps around until he stood right in front of him, gently taking his hands, “and if all this is about what Roland said, I will gladly go and pour a pint of Twyla’s tea over him; which, by the way, is mint and broccoli flavoured today.”

“Ew,” he winces, “you should definitely do that, though. And let Ronnie watch, I think that might make her like you more.”

“I think it would take more than that.”

“I think you’re right,” David agrees, and he’s so brave because he tries to smile, even as his eyes fill up again and he swallows the lump in his throat, “you know how sometimes when you go on vacation and you’re having the best time but, by the end of it, you just want to be in your own bed in your own place with all your stuff?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“I feel like that,” he says, quick to wipe his eyes when they threaten to spill over, “but instead sometimes I want to wake up with Alexis snoring in the next bed, or I want my parents to crash our date night at the café, or I want us to take our lunch break at the motel with Stevie, but we can’t because she’s barely been here since the wedding.”

“Okay, it’s okay, I understand,” he tries to assure, rubbing a hopefully soothing hand up and down David’s arm, “you miss your family, that’s normal.”

“But I didn’t expect to; because I’m a thirty-one-year-old man -”

“Are you, though?”

“I am clearly a wreck, so can you not?”

“Sorry.”

“And we used to go months sometimes without seeing each other, so this really shouldn’t be so bad. But I got used to us all being together, and being like a real family, and even though I feel happier and more settled and safer than I ever have, I feel like they just left me behind and they haven’t looked back,” he takes a deep breath as he pauses, a few tears escaping out the corners of his eyes, letting Patrick take his hand again, “I just worry that it’s going to be like before.”

“Things are so different now, though, David.”

“Are they? Because Alexis is already making connections and getting back into some of our old life, and I am so glad that I don’t have to be a part of that anymore,” he says with a watery kind of laugh, “but I worry that she might and that soon she’ll be calling me from some cell in Mykonos or some idiot’s bathroom while he bangs on the door trying to kill her and I just, I just -”

“Wish she was here, so you know you don’t have to worry about her.”

“Yes,” David agrees, looking down at their hands, “which I know is very selfish, you don’t have to tell me.”

“I was thinking that you’re a really good brother, actually,” he says, “and that you don’t need to worry about her anymore; she’s changed so much, and she cares so much about making something for herself that she’s not going to run off to Greece with the first guy that looks at her. She’s not that person anymore.”

“No, I know; I can stand to talk to her for more than ten minutes now.”

“Exactly,” he agrees, smiling because David does, just a little, and that’s enough for now, “and I don’t think your mother could go more than a few hours, let alone a few months, without calling to tell you about some drama from set or about one of her wigs getting water damaged.”

“God, _imagine_.”

“As for your Dad, if you call him with a business question, I think you could get him on the phone for hours.”

“But I have you for my business questions.”

“I think I can give that up if it means giving you a reason to call your Dad.”

“That’s sweet,” he says, then asks quietly, “will you please kiss me?”

“No,” Patrick whispers but kisses him anyway, and when they pull apart David looks at least a little brighter. “And as for Stevie,” he says, sighing, “I miss her, too, it sucks.”

“I know.”

“I think for now we just need to play the part of the supportive friends.”

“I don’t like that part very much.”

“No, me neither,” he offers another small smile, the two of them just looking at each other before he speaks again, “they won’t just forget about you, David. I don’t think anyone lucky enough to know you could.”

“You’re sweet,” he murmurs, “sometimes.”

“I’m lucky.”

“Yes, yes you are.”

David lets go of his hands then and pulls him in for a hug by his belt loops. They stay still for a minute in a kind of content silence, the ever-present leaking tap in the bathroom the only sound in the usually humming store.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” David says gently after a moment, “and for offering to pour poison over Roland.”

“For you? Anytime.”

“I know they haven’t just up and left and completely forgot I exist, sometimes I just get in my head.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“You’re such a dick sometimes,” he whines, pushing Patrick away but smiling, his cheeks now dry but blushing sweetly, “and I’m a little embarrassed about being all over, or whatever.”

“You should also know by now that I don’t ever mind you being all over me.

They kiss then and it’s Patrick’s favourite kind of kiss; one where he can feel his husband’s smile against his lips and taste his laugh on his tongue. When they part, it’s Patrick that pulls him in this time, holding him close and squeezing David until his giggle huffs hot over Patrick’s neck.

“How mad are you that Ronnie witnessed that little scene earlier?”

“Seething.”

The plan, once the monotony of moving numbers from one column of a spreadsheet to another allowed him to think of it, is so obvious that Patrick feels kind of dumb for not thinking of it sooner. It’s also, in theory, pretty simple; ask around, set a time, and enjoy the spoils of doing something nice for his husband. Naturally, though, his father-in-law has the computer skills of a newborn duckling, and what should have been a few short texts lead to a few long emails, eventually ending in a hushed phone call, leaving Patrick with the early signs of a migraine and a newfound respect for Stevie, because explaining anything related to technology to Johnny Rose could be a full-time job.

Doing his best to shake off his headache, he leaves the backroom to find David at the cash bagging a teenager’s new skincare routine into a tote.

“Remember,” David says, his patience for those ignorant to the power of glycolic acid and rosehip oil having grown since opening the store, “the mask only goes here,” he gestures to his t-zone, and the kid nods.

“I will, thank you,” she grabs her purchases and leaves, hopping down the steps and out of sight.

“Keep this up, David, and soon the whole town will have the skin of a baby.”

“Will I even get a thank you, though? No – Oh, you’re making fun of me.”

“Yes,” he says, smothering his smile in David’s shoulder when he gets close enough to wrap his arms around his waist.

“You can talk as much shit as you want; one day when we’re fifty and you look like a crumpled-up paper bag that someone painted translucent, and people are asking you how you got such a young, fresh-looking husband, we’ll see who’s laughing.”

“And how long is it until you turn fifty?”

“Okay,” David grumps, only grinning when Patrick leans up to kiss his pout.

“Will you be okay if I go run an errand?”

“I think I can manage.”

“Good. And you can close on your own?”

“Yes, I have surprisingly done that before.”

“Just making sure,” he says, squeezing David before letting go and starting towards the door.

“Where are you going, though?”

“I think that’s my business,” he says, swinging the door open and holding it in place with his foot.

“Is it something to do with me?”

“Maybe.”

“Am I going to like it?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me what it is?”

“David.”

“Fine,” he says, holding his hands up, “I’ll see you at home.”

“Bring pizza.”

“God, you’re so bossy.”

“You like it,” he grins, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he grins back, “now you should leave; you’re getting a little clingy.”

“Okay, David,” he lets the door shut behind him, and kind of wishes he got a funnier last word.

Stage two of his plan is, somehow, more of a headache than stage one.

Firstly, he grabs his iPad from his side of the bed, his stomach only briefly swooping at the fact that he has a designated side in the bed that he shares with his husband, and after that only briefly wondering if that feeling will ever go away. He hopes it doesn’t.

Secondly, after showering and putting on something a little less sweaty, he grabs a cold beer and an open bottle of prosecco and falls wearily onto the couch. Their living room is still pretty much a complete disaster; a mismatch of furniture takes up a lot of the room, some waiting to be replaced and some waiting to be picked up by a local thrift store, a few remaining unpacked boxes serve as both an eyesore and a makeshift coffee table because David may have ways of getting Patrick to do a lot of things, but spending two grand on the new one he found isn’t one of those things. And while the wallpaper could rival his old room at Ray’s and the yellow ceiling reveals the smoking status of its previous owners, it’s got a beautiful fireplace and a view of their front garden, and David’s almost narrowed down the colour palette on his mood board, so it’s starting to feel more like home.

He places the iPad on one of said boxes, and opens Facetime, starting a call with his first target. It rings for far longer than he’d expected, even when taking into account the technophobes on the other end, but eventually he gets an answer, though he has to squint to make any sense of what he’s seeing.

“John. John!” he hears, smiling when the picture loses some of its fuzz and the screen is filled with an expensive-looking diamond earring and the bottom half of his mother-in-law's face, “John, your new toy is making a near ghostly lament, did you break it?”

“It’s not broken, Mrs. Rose,” Patrick says, “just move the, uh, toy in front of your face. That’s it.”

“Oh, Patrick,” she says, as though she was expecting George and Amal to be on the other end of the call, “what a wonderful surprise!”

“We did set this up earlier, remember?”

“You know how it is when you’re just inundated with scripts and brunches and directors taking a mile when you offer them an inch.”

“So, the show’s keeping you busy, then?”

“I am up to my ears but enjoying every minute.”

“That’s good,” he says, feeling a pleasant kind of warmth at the genuine look of happiness on her face, “where’s your husband?”

“He’s changing his jacket, I think he wants to avoid another lecture from our David about his mixing a navy suit with brown shoes, you know how he is.”

“That I do,” he chuckles, deciding against telling her that David will definitely not be able to see his father’s shoes, “speaking of; he should be home soon, so why don’t I add the others to the call, and we can get this show on the road.”

It takes a while to get everyone on screen and happy and unblurry. It would have taken less time, but Johnny accidentally ended the call twice, Stevie took ten minutes to find a spot in her motel room where the wi-fi wasn’t so patchy that she was just a frozen ghost under bad lighting, while Alexis on the other hand kept disappearing off the screen to fiddle with the angle and brightness of her ring light because, yes, she does have a ring light for video calls. Finally, though, everyone is online and well lit, and Patrick settles back into the couch cushions just as he hears keys in the front door.

“You didn’t answer my text about which toppings you wanted,” he hears from the hallway, “so you better be dead or naked.”

“Ugh,” he’s not sure who on the screen says it, but he narrows it down to two suspects.

“Not naked,” he calls back, smiling when David appears in the doorway, “surprise.”

“Oh, my God,” he breaths, momentarily frozen where he’s stood, “what’s this?”

“We heard you might want some company,” Johnny says. Well, shouts might be a more appropriate word.

“Okay, that’s very nice but you don’t need to scream at me.”

“I just want to make sure you can hear me, David.”

“I think I’d be able to hear you without the iPad right now.”

“If I wanted to hear two people yell at each other I would walk down literally any street in New York.”

“Oh, how is Staten Island?” David asks as he sits down.

“I do not live in Staten Island, David,” Alexis snaps, “and it’s going very well actually; two small businesses have expressed interest in me running their socials, plus Jake Gyllenhaal’s personal trainer gave me his number.”

“Some things never change,” David says.

“I didn’t use it! God, someone’s bitter.”

“You remember our little repartee about weaponry, don’t you, Alexis?” Moira interrupts before David can summon what would have surely been a cutting response.

“I don’t need to carry a taser, this is Brooklyn, not the backstreets of Caracas; if I can navigate my way through Miley Cyrus’ 21st birthday party with Trace after me, I think I can survive living alone.”

“Well, can I have the taser then?” Stevie asks. “Because the guy at the front desk of this motel absolutely has a human skin suit in his closet.”

“I wonder what it’s like to stay in a motel with staff that gives off bad vibes,” David slips his arm through Patrick’s as he speaks, squeezing him, “must be hell.”

“Probably as bad as having a guest who leaves you seventeen unanswered voicemails about pillowcases.”

“Seventeen?” Patrick breaths.

“I was in a very dark place, thank you.”

“A darkness only deepened by our former residence’s lack of Siberian down,” Moira drawls.

“Why don’t we move on from this before I have to tell you that I didn’t even use to wash them?” Stevie smirks.

The four answering shouts of what do not soothe Patrick’s still slightly foggy head, but it does make him feel sickly warm and fuzzy inside. He’s reminded, happily, of evenings in the motel or the store, days and nights filled with ease and laughter so sincere and happy that his cheeks would ache as he strolled home, memories of David’s family welcoming him and eventually becoming part of his own. He’s reminded of birthdays and holidays, of his joy when picking David up for dates when everything was new and exciting, and of dropping him off with a kiss in his car, and knows so surely that things are even better now because when David said earlier that he’s never felt more settled or safe, Patrick knows that he feels exactly the same way, a realisation that doesn’t hit him hard like a freight train but softly, with the same feeling he has waking his husband up with a kiss or falling asleep in his arms, something warm and gentle and right and like home. Part of him wishes he could go back and tell the Patrick of then how stupidly, ridiculously happy the Patrick of now is, the other part wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.

“Oh, my God, Alexis, I did that one time in Kyoto when I was, like, twenty-five, get over it,” David says, making Patrick realise that he had slightly zoned out in all his musings.

“Balance restored,” he whispers, leaning in to kiss his husband’s perfect face.


End file.
